The Effect of Gut Bacteria in Cancer Treatment
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New and effective cancer treatments act as a catalyst, activating the immune system and encouraging it to attack cancerous cells in the body. When the drugs work, the immune system eliminates tumors. However, the drugs don't always work; in fact, cancer drugs fail in 60-70% of cases. This is because cancer drugs don't affect the immune system to the same extent in every patient. But according to new research, what may need to be stimulated in cancer treatment isn't your immune system, but your gut.
Some bacteria living in the gut appear to train immune system cells to surround and fight cancer cells even before immunotherapies are administered.1Without such a microbial primer, drugs offer only a futile incentive. Science Two studies published in the journal showed that cancer patients who did not respond to treatment were deficient in certain bacteria in their gut, especially after taking antibiotics. On the other hand, cancer patients who responded to treatment were observed to have bacteria that stimulate the immune system to release chemicals that activate T cells, which kill cancer cells.
When researchers transferred gut microbes from human cancer patients to bacteria-free, cancerous mice, these rodents experienced the same fate as the patients. That is, mice injected with microbes from patients who did not respond to cancer treatment did not respond to immunotherapy, while mice injected with gut microbes from patients who did respond to treatment did respond. Furthermore, when researchers injected treatment-responsive gut microbes into treatment-unresponsive mice, the mice began fighting cancer again.
"Studies with patients, and subsequent research on mice, have allowed us to understand that gut microbiomes modulate both systemic and anti-tumor immunity. "That's what Jennifer Wargo, a surgical oncologist and geneticist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and one of the experts on one of the studies, says. Dr. Wargo plans to conduct clinical trials in the future to see if fecal transplants in cancer patients increase the success rate of immunotherapy."
Dr. Wargo also adds that we can alter our microbiomes, that it's not such a difficult process, and that it offers us brand new opportunities.
Detailed information about cancer and microbiome research.
In Dr. Wargo's research and – France Villejuif Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus In studies led by immunology expert Laurence Zitvogel, researchers focused on "checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapy," specifically drugs called PD-1 inhibitors. Normally, PD-1 is a protein located on the surface of T cells – in non-cancer scenarios – that functions as a checkpoint protecting against highly excited immune responses and autoimmune diseases. To achieve this, the PD-1 protein locks onto PD-L1 proteins on healthy cells, thus signaling T cells not to attack healthy cells.
However, cunning cancer cells can evade T cell attacks by adopting PD-L1. This is where PD-1 inhibitors come into play. If these drugs can block PD-L1, preventing it from attaching to cancer cells, they can redirect the T cell attack towards the tumors. However, as mentioned above, PD-1 inhibitor therapies are often ineffective.
Before these studies yielded results, Zitvogel and colleagues, in research on mice, noticed that gut microbes play a role in regulating the immune system's response to cancer. Their hypothesis was that, if this were true, bacteria-killing antibiotics could suppress the effect of PD-1 inhibitors. To see if their hypothesis was correct, they examined the outcomes of 249 patients with lung, kidney, and bladder cancer, some of whom received antibiotics while undergoing PD-1 inhibitor treatment. The researchers concluded that there was a link between antibiotic use and immunotherapy failure, as they observed that 69 patients who received antibiotics had shorter survival times compared to other patients with the same cancers and similar health factors.
In the next stage, researchers examined microbial communities in the stool of 100 different patients, both those who responded to treatment and those who did not, and discovered large differences in the proportions of specific bacterial species. They found that patients who responded to PD-1 inhibitors had a higher proportion of Akkermansia muciniphila, a gut bacterium believed to have anti-inflammatory effects. In mouse experiments, A. muciniphilia bacteria were shown to stimulate immune cells to release a chemical called IL-2, which regulates and activates T cells. Similarly, A. muciniphilia treatments were able to transform treatment-resistant gut microbes into treatment-responsive microbes in cancerous mice.
Wargo's research has yielded similar findings. A study of 112 skin cancer patients receiving PD-1 inhibitor therapy concluded that the patients' gut microbiomes were linked to the success or failure of immunotherapy. While this research didn't specifically focus on the A. muciniphilia bacterium, it concluded that individuals who responded to treatment had more diverse bacterial communities in their bodies and higher proportions of certain bacterial types. Furthermore, when the patients' gut microbes were injected into bacteria-free cancer mice, the mice's fate was the same as in the previous study, mirroring the fate of the human donors. The researchers also found evidence that beneficial bacteria have a T-cell activating effect.
Taken together, both studies highlight the significant role that gut microbes play in the outcomes of immunotherapies used to treat cancer. However, many questions remain; for example, how can a particular type of bacteria activate the immune system to fight cancer, or are there potential side effects or harms to manipulating the microbiome of cancer patients?
However, Wargo and His friends summarize the situation as follows.:
“These findings underscore the therapeutic potential of regulating gut microbiomes in patients receiving checkpoint blockade immunotherapy, while also warranting rapid patient assessment through clinical trials.2, 3)”
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This article ArsTechnica This text is a translation of the article titled "Gut bacteria may make or break your chances of cancer treatment working" found on the website. Habit Gıda AŞ bears no responsibility for the content of this article. This article is for informational purposes only, has been translated from English to Turkish, and does not contain any health advice. Habit Gıda AŞ cannot be held responsible for any health problems that may arise in readers as a result of this article. Readers should not take any action based on the content of this article without consulting their doctor regarding their health condition. You should consult your doctor about all matters related to your health.
This article is a translation of the article "Gut bacteria may make or break your chances of cancer treatment working" published on the ArsTechnica website.